John Tommy Tyldesley: His Only Minor Counties Championship Century

Martin Chandler | 7:59am GMT 09 January 2022

Published: 2022
Pages: 12
Author: Tebay, Martin
Publisher: Red Rose Books
Rating: 3.5 stars

One day someone will finally get round to writing a full biography of the great Lancastrian professional batsman of the ‘Golden Age’, JT Tyldesley, but until they do we will have to make do with snippets from his life from writers like Martin Tebay.

JT, otherwise known as John Tommy, played for Lancashire from 1895 to 1919, and after his retirement as a player he ran his own sports shop in Manchester as well as undertaking coaching duties at Old Trafford.

In 1926, as well as his coaching, JT also led the county’s second team in the Minor Counties Championship. By then 52 and suffering from failing health (he departed this mortal coil in 1930) JT rolled back the years for a final time when he scored a century against Staffordshire.

The match was the first county game to be played at the ground of Lancashire League club Haslingden, and saw JT pitched against his old England teammate Sydney Barnes, who was just a few months his senior.

Barnes would go on to play the game to a high standard for a number of years but, ending up with 1/32, he was bested by JT at Haslingden as, coming in with his charges at 35-5, JT put together his innings of 127.

Sadly the match itself, with Lancashire on top, was ruined as a contest when rain washed out the second and final day’s play but the match was nonetheless well covered by the local press and there is plenty of material for Martin to draw on in order to reconstruct what must have been an impressive knock.

As with all Red Rose’s publications this one has a short print run of just 30 signed and numbered copies which are available at £6.99 inclusive of UK postage.